The Filth is currently accepting submissions for our Sex Toy issue. You know that sextoy party you went to last year? We wanna hear about that. Remember the first time you bought/used something plastic/mechanical? Come on, don’t be shy. Have a favorite toy that you wanna recommend? Ever bought a toy for someone else? Worked in a porn shop? Don’t make us beg for it!!

This will be our spring issue, out in April. Deadline for submissions is MARCH 31, 2012! Send your best, dirtiest, filthiest stories, poems, pictures, drawings, and paintings to

Feminist comp-zine Pandora Press is looking for submissions for its third issue! The theme is TIME.

Here are some prompts/ideas for where you could go with this theme, though this list is far from exhaustive:

– Waves of feminism: do you identify with a wave in particular? What do you think the 4th wave will look like? Do you think that the notion of “waves of feminism” is a useful notion, or is it problematic? Do you agree with the direction of modern feminism, and its fights/causes?– A woman’s age/passage of life: What pressures are women under in particular with regards to age – what they should look like, what they should be doing (e.g. childbearing before the age of 35), what direction their life is supposed to take? Are these realistic, or too constricting?– The history of women/feminism: Are there any historical women or female activists that inspire you? Any groundbreaking pre-feminist texts? What was the world like for women before our era?– The future for women/feminism: what would a feminist society look like? How far do we have left before equality is reached? Is it on the horizon? Is it possible?– Beauty standards: are women under pressure to avoid “looking their age”? What qualities are associated with each decade of a woman’s life? Are these fair? What pressures are women under as each decade passes by?– Young vs old feminists/women: are we being pitted against each other? Or is the generational divide too wide to relate to each other? Can we learn from each other? Are there experiences that exclusively lie with one group, or are we not that different from each other?– Issues that affect young people: sex education, virginity/chastity/purity myths, employment, higher education, etc.
– Issues that affect older people: how is one’s age construed in our society? Are there prejudices against older people? Are old people ever favoured over young people (e.g. older men = authoritative figures), or are young people overwhelmingly favoured in society?– Our current “time”/culture: What sucks about society’s treatment of women? What will our future look like – utopia? Dystopia? Will humanity be better off, or worse off, once our generation has passed away? What will be our legacy?

The Self: personal growth & ways in which feminism has (or has not) pushed & challenged us / self-care & feminism / “the personal is political” – the importance of that statement paired with the necessity of challenging it / do we have a “true self” that escapes change? / how “coming out” alters the way that we relate to others & vice versa / stuff that others have tried to change about us (through force, coercion etc.)

Legislation: the pros & cons of legislative reform / does “radical” always mean a rejection of legislative reform? / obtaining legal aid / social factors that impact our relationship to the cops / when & if can the master’s tools be used to fuck with the master’s house

Relationships: our feminism has impacted our interpersonal relationships (with family, friends, partners etc.) /relationships between who we are and what we can (& cannot) do / trying to change ourselves in order to feel accepted / how does (& doesn’t) feminism accommodate people who hold different identities & come from different backgrounds

Language: evolution of terminology & identity descriptors / nuances of identity politics in feminist & queer circles / what terms we embrace and cast aside over time / applications of the “feminist” label

we also totally need lots of artwork (photos, collages, illustrations, drawings, paintings, comics, etc.)! particularly for background designs and things that compliment the written material.

please aim to send us yr amazing material to hoaxzine (at) gmail (dot) com by april 1st, 2012. if you are interested, feel free to e-mail us yr ideas for topics & artwork! as always, we are willing to work with you during any and every stage of the writing process. the sooner you send us yr work, the better!

it’s been almost three years since we first began working on hoax. since 2009, hannah montana has been taken off the air, carrie brownstein picked up her guitar again, ugg boots are even more out of style, & those of us in the US can officially be detained indefinitely. neither of us can believe how much this project has expanded since its inception. thank you so much to every contributor, reader, & supporter of this zine! we are looking forward to seeing yr work!

Do you make a cute zine? A zine of the month club is starting called Cute of the Month and they’re looking for cute zines to include in monthly care packages. It can be perzines, litzines, artzines, craft zines, gardening zines, etc. They would be interested in buying them in groups of 10 like a distro. Send a message if you publish something (or make something cute that’s not a zine) you think they might be interested in.

A word from Jessica Abel and Matt Madden, the series editors of The Best American Comics for comics artists and publishers!

Hi everyone,

This is a note to remind you that we are, as always, collecting submissions for the Best American Comics. Great stuff comes out all year round and we want to get our hands on it as soon as possible. In addition, it makes our guest editors’ jobs much more manageable if we can supply them with a large batch of excellent booty by mid-summer.

So please submit your books published since September 1 of 2011 for Best American Comics 2013. If you don’t publish books, we’ve put you on our reminder list because we know you know people who do, and we hope you’ll pass on this reminder to them. Especially when it comics to minis, webcomics, and very small press, we need your help to make sure we’re seeing what’s great out there in the comics world.

How to submit:
Mail one copy of each of your books to us at the address below. Please make sure to attach your contact information and the RELEASE DATE. If it’s not inside the book, stick a post-it on the cover with that info.

BAC11, under guest editor Alison Bechdel, has been one of our most popular volumes yet and I’m pleased to be able to announce to you “officially” the the guest editor for BAC12 is none other than Françoise Mouly! (As for BAC13, you’ll just have to wait and see…)

Looking ahead, Jessica and Matt will both be at MoCCA Fest and will have a table where you can drop books off if you don’t see us walking the floor. Matt will also be at TCAF the following weekend. We look forward to seeing you.

thanks and get in touch if you have any questions,

Jessica Abel and Matt Madden
Series Editors
The Best American Comics
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
215 Park Avenue South
New York, NY 10003

Our understanding of women’s orgasms from pop culture and porn is very narrow. In talking with other women we realized that our experiences of orgasms are extremely diverse, and this allowed us to embrace our own unique experiences of pleasure without feeling pressure to conform to a norm. We all have different bodies, so it makes sense that we would have different orgasms. We are compiling a collection of personal stories about women’s orgasms into a zine to hopefully help other women better understand that their pleasure is theirs alone and not what society says it should be. Please send us a submission of 500 words or less to the address below. You are welcome to start with one or more of the following questions, but they are only meant to get your juices flowing! The deadline for submissions is Feb. 29, 2012. All submissions will be anonymous unless otherwise stated. We recognize that gender is fluid and performative, and that “woman” is an unstable category. We welcome submissions from anyone who has ever identified as a woman. Happy writing!

-Do you have orgasms?

-How would you describe your orgasms?

-Do you have different kinds of orgasms?

-Have your orgasms changed over time?

-Do you think your orgasms are normal or typical?

-How do you communicate with a partner about your orgasms?

-Have you ever faked an orgasm? Why?

-Tell the story of your first or best orgasm

-Do you have difficulty reaching orgasm or did you in the past? What did you do about it?

-Are orgasms important to you?

-Do you experience orgasms differently while masturbating vs. with a partner?

With our spring issue due out March 22nd, the next deadline for C.L.A.P. contributions will be March 1st. In celebration of our year anniversary, we will be having the theme of “community” for this issue. If you find this to be inspirational for a piece, by all means go for it, though you can also create a piece unrelated to the theme as well.

After receiving some submissions and speaking with some invested folks, I realized that this project is bigger than Sassyfrass (see previous call) and deserves more time and space. Now it is its own zine, and you get more time to submit!

We are seeking submissions with a central theme of the cross sections of Jewish and queer identity, and how those identities might inform an anti-Zionist or Palestinian solidarity politic. Some organizing frames include the concept of “doykeit” or “hereness,” diaspora, assimilation, the rhetoric of “self-hate,” decolonization of Judaism, and experiences of queer identity as a Jew or in a Jewish context. Submissions should take the form of personal narrative, whatever mediums you want to use to express that. Any JPEGs should be black and white, high contrast and at least 300 dpi. The issue will be 1/2 size and black and white. Send submissions to sassyfrasscircus@gmail.com. The deadline is February 20th!

The seed of this idea started while the submissions for Our Bodies, Our Bikes were rolling in. The first several entries were also the most frankly sexual, and their writers, even the ones who chose to remain anonymous, ended up being some of the most enthusiastic disseminators of the final product.

When an image of the entire design popped into my head, I knew it had to happen.

So: please consider this an open call for submissions for the zine Bike-sexuality: True tales of bicycling and desire.

Please send short, true tales involving bicycling and sex, sexuality, love, lust, gender, etc — whatever inspires you — to elly[at]takingthelane[dawt]com. Word count: anything from 200 word anecdotes to 1,000 word sagas. Along with your submission, please also include your preferences as to your byline (anonymity and pseudonyms are fine, just let me know). I will assume that names have been changed. Deadline: March 1, 2012. The goal is to publish it by summer.

Submissions may be as graphic or demure as they need to be. I’m most likely to publish stories that ring true, are extremely candid and/or honest, and have an empowering slant. This is a queer-positive publication.

Illustrations also sought!

Feel free to contact me with questions, ideas, or to talk over what you’d like to write in advance.